


Breathtaking beaches and endless days

by GloriaMundi



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Community: trope_bingo, Holidays, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-02
Updated: 2013-10-02
Packaged: 2017-12-28 06:04:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/988591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GloriaMundi/pseuds/GloriaMundi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur is alone on a beach. Suddenly, there is Eames.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breathtaking beaches and endless days

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Idylls challenge on AO3, and also for the 'holiday' square of my trope_bingo card. It is possible that my interpretation of 'idyll' and 'holiday' are not like other people's.

The sand is cool between his toes. Everything's monochrome, watercolour: the sea a dark clear grey, like glass; the sky pale and colourless above a bank of ash-coloured fog. The sun is a white disc, concealed and revealed by veils of mist. Later, it will be hot. 

Arthur can wait. He stands ankle-deep in the slow surf, staring out into the fog. There are no birds here: it's quiet enough that he can hear his own heartbeat. But today there's another sound. Somewhere off to his left -- he thinks, from the position of the sun, that it's north: but he can't remember if the sun rises in the same place every day, or even if it _does_ rise every day -- he can hear someone calling his name.

In the periphery of his vision is a flash of shocking, improbable colour.

"Eames?"

Arthur's hoarse with not speaking, with salt water and cool nights. Eames is, predictably, in full voice. He's wearing that salmon-coloured shirt, and a pair of turquoise board shorts in a batik lizard print. "Arthur!" he's yelling. Running: spray flashes up from his feet, catching sunlight from somewhere, making rainbows.

"Eames?" says Arthur again. Eames is twenty feet away. Ten. Five. He's -- he's _warm_ , and he smells of, of Eames' cologne, and cigarettes and late nights, and something sharply salty that isn't simply seawater.

"Found you," says Eames into Arthur's shoulder. "God, Arthur ..."

"You were looking for me?"

"Well, obviously," says Eames. He steps back, hands still pressing into Arthur's shoulders, examining him. "You look ... better."

"Better than what?" says Arthur.

"Better than last time I saw you," says Eames, his gaze flinching away from Arthur's.

Arthur can't remember the last time he saw Eames. Just trying to recapture that memory provokes a full-body shudder that he can't contextualise.

"Right," says Eames. "Well. Seaside holiday, eh? I can do that."

He steers Arthur away from the ocean, towards a palm-thatched beach bar that Arthur somehow didn't notice until now. There's nobody behind the counter, but Eames leans over and hoiks a couple of bottles from the cooler. The water is cool and delicious. Arthur hadn't realised how thirsty he was. He drains his bottle before Eames is halfway done.

"Hungry?" says Eames. "I think ..." He vaults the bar (Christ, thinks Arthur, those muscles) and rummages around. "There's ... hmm. Fruit. Hard-boiled eggs. Biscuits. Sandwiches?"

" _Sandwiches_?" says Arthur. "What the hell, Eames?"

"Not bad," says Eames through a mouthful of bread and cheese. "Nearly as good as my mum used to make." He piles a plate with food and shoves it along the bar (grey driftwood, pitted and holed and scratched with illegible graffiti) towards Arthur.

Arthur picks up a sandwich. He _is_ hungry, but he can't remember the last time he ate. Can't remember sleeping, come to think of it. Certainly can't remember the cabana nestling in the dip of the dunes. (Dunes? Were there dunes yesterday?) Rainbow-coloured flags hang under the eaves. There's a bead curtain in the doorway, and the breeze makes it shift and shimmer with a noise like dry leaves.

Surely Arthur would remember that. Remember the low, wide bed with its clean white sheets, fresh each day; remember the primitive shower that washes the salt from his skin; remember the evening sun slanting through the blinds, the string of lights along the path from bar to bed ...

"Lovely place you have here," says Eames. "Very ... imaginative. Arthur, I have to say I'm impressed." He's eating strawberries, messily: their red juice drips onto his shirt.

Red.

Arthur stares. He's starting to get flashes of the last time he saw Eames. Like jigsaw pieces. They're making a picture he doesn't like at all. Pain and betrayal; injury, the kind you don't recover from; the crack of breaking bone; the surreal agony of a lost limb. That salty smell on Eames' skin: it's blood, he's sure of it now.

Arthur flings his untouched sandwich down. "We're in Limbo," he says.

Eames says nothing, which means Arthur's right.

"What the fuck? What are _you_ doing here?"

"I came to fetch you," says Eames patiently. 

"W-why, why would you --"

Eames rolls his eyes. "Do you really have to ask that, Arthur?"

Yes: yes, he does. But Eames is acting like it's a dumb question: like they have a _history_ , like there's more between them than cash and conspiracy. Like he didn't scream Arthur's name when the blade -

"Easy now," Eames is saying. "Easy, Arthur. It's over and done with. You're out of it."

"I died," says Arthur. "They killed me." It's flooding over him like a breaking wave: the men with their scarred faces and their clever, careless hands. The taste of his own blood. The feel of his eye--

"You died, yes," says Eames. He's gotten hold of Arthur's shoulders again, holding him, holding him together. His hands are very warm, and surprisingly gentle. "The projections got to you before I could, and -- yeah." His gaze shifts away from Arthur's. "They made me watch," he says, low and bitter, staring out at the ocean.

"They killed me," says Arthur. He is distantly impressed with the lack of affect in his voice. Perhaps this is shock. Perhaps this is how dead men speak.

"You're not bloody dead!" Eames' grip tightens. "It was a _dream_ , Arthur. Where's your totem?"

"My what?"

Eames rolls his eyes. "Listen to me." He slides one hand down Arthur's arm, a tingle of goosebumps, and takes Arthur by the hand. Arthur follows where he leads, because why the hell not? Maybe Eames knows somewhere to go.

"You died in the second level," says Eames. "It ... wasn't pretty. Or slow. So it's no wonder you're wandering around on your own down here like a bloody poet in search of daffodils. But you can wake up whenever you like. I've come to wake you up."

"Why?" asks Arthur again, but Eames just snorts and rolls his eyes.

"So if I'm dead --"

"You're dead on the second level. Up top, you're still asleep -- and yes, Arthur, before you ask, I _did_ pop back to make sure your clever little tripwires were still in place. Nobody's entered or exited the building. Miranda's keeping an eye on our vitals. We can go back whenever you like."

"Okay," says Arthur. "Right. We're dreaming. We're in Limbo. You've come to fetch me back." 

Eames turns on him. Arthur's dizzied by the instant rush of adrenaline, fight or flight, brings his arm up to ward off--

Eames is _kissing_ him.

Arthur ... Arthur, it seems, is kissing back.

And yeah: yeah, they've done this. Yeah, there's more to the two of them than dreaming, more to them than smuggled somnacin and forged passports, more than forged faces and anonymous transfers. More than mere violence, or convenience, or the carefully-constructed worlds in which they work. 

Arthur breaks away, gasping. He feels like he's been drowning (it's a gentle death, he knows) and Eames has saved him. He feels like he's been sleeping for a hundred years. (Which makes Eames-- No, he is totally not going there.) He feels alive. Awake. Ready.

"Yeah," he says to Eames, grinning. "Right, okay, Limbo. Now what?"

"We're at the seaside," says Eames, smiling back at Arthur like a maniac. "We have food and drink," he gestures at the bar, which has acquired a board with "Club Tropicana" chalked on it, "good company, an endless beach, some _serious_ surf ... 'Now' nothing, Arthur. What's the rush?"

Behind them, the sun is coming up. The sky is brightening, blue. It's going to be a glorious day.

-end-


End file.
